He could tell her relative distance from the single word, and he passed through their camp as he used both wings and legs to increase his speed, darting past trees and brush as quickly as he possibly good.
This was not an efficient system, he decided, his pulse pounding in his ears, fear causing a surge of anger, his limbs ready to fight.
To defend.
She could not disappear in the opposite direction and expect him to be able to reach her in time. For her to be hurt or killed in the time it took to catch sight of her crimson cloak, the only glow about her the lantern at her side, so dark was it when the trees grew so densely together.
But she was standing when he appeared at her side, his eyes darting about trying to ascertain the threat. Was it simply cloaked so well that it was not readily visible?
Then how had Penryn seen it?
He turned, looking for sign of injury if perhaps a beast had taken a swipe at her before disappearing into the darkness beyond, but there was nothing. Penryn was simply looking at him with what could only be mortification, her hand reaching out and touching his sword arm. “Oh. Oh no. Grimult, I am sorry. I was excited, not...” a sheepish smile, dimmed considerably by the wrong she felt she had done. “I was not frightened.”
She looked down at the bush at their feet. Perhaps that was not the correct description, as the plant itself was more of a vine, twining and strangling its neighbours, thorned tendrils protecting shiny, delicate fruits.
The lack of danger should have brought only relief, but there was irritation as well as he sheathed his sword. “In future, perhaps you could relay that information as well when calling for me.”
“I am sorry,” Penryn repeated. “I feel stupid for it now, but all I could think was that I could not carry them all back with me.”
The ungenerous part of him wanted to retort that she could have easily returned to the camp for the small cauldron located in the pack and picked her fill with an easy vessel for returning, but sense returned as his heart slowed. She might not be able to find her way back, he reminded himself. And there was the lantern to contend with, more precious than a cauldron or berries and awkward to wrestle with both.
It was nearly on his tongue to assure her that it was all right, but that seemed too close to a falsehood. He felt grossly unprepared now that the first semblance of danger was upon them, fleeting though it had been. How was he to manage all of this alone? To see them safe when Penryn... when she...
She was picking berries. Crimson fruits that would most certainly stain her bandages, all while giving him apologetic smiles as she offered him a handful.
She was waiting for him to sheath his sword, he realised, and begrudgingly he did so. He was not going to waste food, regardless of the conversation they would need to have later.
Penryn’s smile grew when he accepted her offering, and she turned back to the twining vines with more enthusiasm. There was more than they could both carry so she was selective, choosing the firm, dark berries and leaving their neighbours to mature.
It was evidently one thing he would not have to teach her, and it made him glad that the sages taught her something at all.
“Are you going to forgive me?” she asked abruptly, his own hands full of a mountain of berries. He was uncertain he could manage them all on the trek back, but he supposed any spills could come from his own portion.
She managed a small pile of her own using a portion of her cloak, the entire business a fumbling, difficult thing, but she managed to encourage quite a few into her makeshift pocket, and she was able to hold her cloak in one hand and the lantern in the other when she was clearly ready to return to the camp.
“Yes,” he agreed. There was no point in doing otherwise. He might not be ready to release all feelings of lingering crossness, but he would. Eventually.
When a better system was in place.
Penryn gave him a look, almost as if she knew his answer did not indicate an immediate release of rancour. “I am certain I will make more mistakes over the course of our time together,” Penryn mused. “Are you going to grow colder each time?”
He nearly opened his mouth to suggest she grow more cautious in her dealings so such mishaps could be circumvented rather than accepted as inevitable, but he quickly rethought doing so. He did not want to pick a quarrel. Nothing had been wrong and the greatest that had been done was giving him a fright for her safety.
The sages would likely scold her for doing even that, before turning on him and insisting that it could not have happened if he was being as attentive as he should. They were not wrong. He wanted to give her privacy, moments alone so she did not always rankle under his company and watchful eye, but perhaps that was a foolish desire.
Two men along the Journey would not care, would they? Plenty had cared little for modesty and dignity among his fellow initiates, at least with each other.
And from their tales when they escaped beyond the sheltering walls of their instruction, their lack of decency carried into their dealings with the female sex as well.
“I was frightened for you,” Grimult admitted, finding it better to simply acknowledge it rather than pass it off as anger. “I am relieved it was nothing serious, but it is a reminder that it might not always be so. I do not wish to become complacent.”
Penryn did not immediately respond, and he glanced beside him. Her face was partially shadowed, most of the light for
